You lay out the situation fairly well.

All right, here's an Ayn Rand-style theory for you:

Among the most prominent financiers in the world today, if not the most prominent financier in the world today, is a dead ringer for Ellsworth Monckton Toohey. I refer here to George Soros.

Did he not run a conspiracy?

Just because Atlas Shrugged projected no worthy adversaries for John Galt, on the order of Howard Roark's adversaries, does not mean that no such adversaries exist in real life.

The United Nations is the vehicle for one-world government. Remember who put that together? Alger Hiss. And look again at the United Nations Charter, and its "Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Now have a look at what Alex Jones is charging. He charges that certain persons are carrying out false-flag pseudo-operations at "gun-free zones" with a view to convincing the people to turning in their privately owned firearms and not tolerating any who retain them.

And for sounding the alarm, he gets de-platformed.

And he is only the first.

A proscription on being sued for something someone else does is not a "privilege". That confusion is bad enough; trying to demagogue it into a "standing to sue" in order to punish someone for not giving you what you want is worse. Your link to the paranoid conspiracy that Google steers search results to antisemitism and a "globalist goal of one-world government" is not "evidence" of anything but ignorance and emotionalism.

This isn't about a "one-world government" conspiracy and Alex Jones' hysterically sensationalist "suspicions". Please try to discuss the issue in rational terms, related at least in some way to principles and to Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, not their opposite. Rotely 'downvoting' posts that you do not read or understand is non-responsive and not what this forum is for.

I would encourage you to take another look at the content involved.

1. It goes further than Alex Jones. It goes to absolutely everything that opposes an agenda of one-world government.

2. Alex Jones just might be correct in some of the suspicions he entertains.

And what do you call that "exemption" they have, except a special privilege.

Now I ask you again: how do you solve the problem? How do you make sure that an alternative platform can displace Facebook and Google if they're going to continue with their bias, and the vagueries of their guidelines?

And before you ask for evidence, here is a source:

https://www.conservativenewsandviews....

Unfortunately what people are "liable for" is determined by law, not reason, and both individuals and companies are harassed and sued improperly all the time. By increasing this power to abuse through changes in the law, the populists will destroy the tech companies and all the benefits they have brought to us.

The companies do not have a "special privilege" with any government "barrier to entry". The high tech industry has been spectacularly successful because of lack of government interference.

They are not halting the spread of messages friendly to liberty. They have removed some conservative material containing outrageous accusations and conspiracy theories which have nothing to do with advocacy of principles of political liberty. Ironically it is all openly discussed on the internet using the same platforms falsely accused of "censorship".

Much of the observable "bias" in enforcing "guidelines" is a direct result of the current state of the dominant culture and education by the intellectuals. That is not solved by screaming for government controls and open-ended harassment by lawyers -- on top of the same populist conservative collectivists echoing century-old progressive "monopoly" demagoguery against "corporations".

The populist conservative demagogues doing that have the least understanding of the source of the problem and how their own collectivist statism is making the problem much worse.

Elsewhe re on this same page:https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

They do not "edit" content and are not "publishers". Except for guidelines on what is not permitted at all, those who write and post decide for themselves what will appear. No one edits it.

Some of the guidelines, such as denying lurid pornography, are uncontroversial because most users don't want to have to see that. The problems arise because they are trying to prevent other kinds of material deemed personally "offensive", which in turn depends on ideological biases they don't know they have because of the state of the culture and their education. Inside Google and the others is a cultural zoo that will not be reformed by punitive government action.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/05/03/...

https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/...

When they decided to eliminate what they call "hate speech" they necessarily got into a briar patch of impossible, subjective standards. Once such subjectivism is in place it doesn't take much for particular employees to exacerbate the problem with all kinds of personal agendas.

The "fake news" controversy erupted when organized, deliberately false material began to be systematically inserted for political propaganda in the name of news. This came to a head with the Russian disinformation campaign. Once they tried to block that, their own political biases began to obstruct much more.

They don't know what their own biases are, but they do know they have a genuine problem under the pressure to stop the exploitation of their platforms for all kinds of purposes ranging from deliberately false political propaganda posing as news, to terrorists advocating crime, to (ironically) violations of personal privacy.

The big danger from these companies now is that they are trying to protect themselves from how they deal with these problems by calling for government "guidelines" telling them what to do so as to not be responsible for it. That is mixed in with their own conformist, politically correct ideology in the name of anti "hate speech" and similar slogans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rig...

This has resulted in Facebook, Google, and some of the others now actively lobbying for government censorship -- not (yet) full totalitarianism, but they want government power like current European-Canadian censorship banning certain thoughts or motives, applied as "guidelines" to the internet in the name of being anti "extremist".

Populist conservatives demanding their own government action does not help. They want to punish companies in a maze of contradictions that are the opposite of individualism and freedom and will only lead to more government controls and pressure group warfare that individualism will not win.

In particular, the demands like Hawley's for law suit harassment making companies legally liable for what others publish on the their platforms will only lead to less freedom on the internet as property owners cut back further on what they allow in order to protect themselves. It will do nothing to resolve the underlying, cultural problems of increasing collectivism and statism that are the cause of all of it. http://tracinskiletter.com/2018/12/22...

They are not availing themselves of any special privileged.
You will never be able to sue tech companies for things they are not liable for.
This is the same for every business.

No, they're not.
If I decide not to let you put a sign in my yard, it doesn't mean I'm now in the publishing business.
This is a non-starter.

When they edit or delete content they are acting as publisher.

Just deplorable huh.

They are, however, availing themselves of a special privilege. They are abusing a barrier to entry from the government.

We deal here with several companies abusing some kind of privilege to halt the spread of messages friendly to liberty. What, if not this measure, would you suggest?

He doesn't mean to be correct. His snide sarcasm intends the opposite.

Sen. Hawley's rhetoric about "censorship", "sweetheart deals", and the rest is anti-private property, anti-business demagoguery. He and the rest of these collectivist populists are clearly threatening punitive controls and abusive law suits any way they can because they know that controlling them direclty in the name of the First Amendment is unconstitutional.

Nope, you are completely correct.
It's really that simple.

It says a lot about the appalling state of the conservative movement that they don't get this and through sheer ignorance are the ones behaving like the censorious leftists they claim to be opposing.

Not being able to use someone else's property is not the same kind of "limitation" as a government order preventing you from using your own property or agreeing with someone else to use theirs. They are not "indistinguishable".

Government power to censor usually does mean you can't say something anywhere, but not always. A censor may prevent you from using some kind of outlets, but not other, less public ones. Even military censorship of letters to home can't stop all verbal communication.

But that is mostly a matter of inefficiency and the impossibility of complete totalitarianism without killing everyone. The premise of the power of censorship implies the trend towards totalitarianism. No private business can do that with its own property rights. The moral premise of private property is the opposite of statism and censorship, and so are the results.

Not sure why you're saying that sarcastically as it is completely correct.
Private companies cannot censor.
Those who don't get this are politically illiterate leftists.

Edited content boards are still not liable for what gets posted on them. That will not make them publishers.
In any case, it doesn't matter.
You don't get to decide what these businesses are because you disagree with them politically and want to punish them for this using the state.

"With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship"
No they don't because they are not publishers.
Tech companies cannot be sued for things they are not liable for.
Those leading this Marxist assault on the rights of tech companies are themselves the censorious leftists.

If a company limits your ability to speak your mind you may choose a different company to handle your comments or opinions. If the Government limits your ability to state your opinion it will apply regardless of where you try to get it transmitted. one is a private companies policy the other is law . there is a difference in who is limiting your speech.

"Internet censorship" is not a freedom of speech problem because private actions are not censorship. Yes you are still demagoguing and so is the Senator. Snide sarcasm while advocating punitive government controls is not rational discussion of some very real problems.

The companies do not "edit content". They do not allow content that is contrary to guidelines. When content violates the guidelines it is removed, not edited. That is not an excuse to sue them. One can argue that there may or may not be too much limitation on liability, but that is not a freedom of speech issue and is unrelated to the desires of populist demagogues to control the companies by limiting their freedom of speech. They are trying to bludgeon companies into submission by threatening controls and law suits. Making companies legally liable for what others write would force the companies to remove more content to protect themselves.

They are not "participating in biased censorship".

It can't be both "indistinguishable from censorship" and not "truly censorship". Freedom of speech means the right to not support or be associated with views you don't approve of, whether or not it is "whim" -- which in this case it mostly is not. It has nothing to do with censorship and is clearly "distinguishable" from it.

Exactly right.

It is a matter of semantics what it is called, the result is the same.

We see daily that flake companies stop advertising on FOX b/c they are incensed at what Tucker said.

What is it if not censorship? They are using monetary means to clam him up.